Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment MAP score, how reliable is it?

For those who are interested in the current max score, this note from NWEA states that the maximum valid scores (across the whole grade range) are 350 or 320, depending on which battery is administered. (Range from 100-350.) Scores above the maximum can be recorded, but will be invalidated by the system. The 2015 norms document, referenced there, also notes that the 99th %ile for 11th grade is 285 for math, and about 260 for reading and language, which suggests that scores above those ranges are unlikely to add meaningful normative information.

ETA: Oh, and the 99th percentile in math for the algebra II end-of-course exam is 291.

https://community.nwea.org/docs/DOC-1651

MAP K-2 (aka MPG) also has hard RIT ceilings of 230 for math, and 220 for reading.

https://community.nwea.org/docs/DOC-1496

I'd like to know at what score you move to the 6+ on math? It's easy to find all over the internet when to move to the 2-5, but I can't find anything stating when to move to 6+ or what the max score is on the 2-5. DS got a 239 and will likely improve slightly over the summer. Will the 2-5 still be the right test for him in the fall? Is there any difference other than higher level questions being available? If that is the only difference, why have two separate tests? Since the school requires this testing 3x per year I want to at least make sure that the data is useful to us!

Guidance doc on transitioning from 2-5 to 6+: fall score of 231+ and exposure to 6th grade standards. The recommendation is that a fall score of 231+ should lead to instruction in 6th grade standards and transition to the 6+ test for future tests. The document reports an ~10 point drop from spring 2-5 to fall 6+ testing for the highest performers (>90th %ile), which would suggest that the 2-5 would still be the appropriate test for him in the fall, but that the 6+ would be the correct test for subsequent measurements.

https://www.nwea.org/content/upload...ath-6-plus-Transition-Guidance-MAY15.pdf

If you look at page 5, there is a comparison of common core strands assessed on the respective tests, which, you'll note, includes notable differences.

DD7 (just finished second grade, skipping to fourth) and DD8 (just finished third grade) scored 231 and 230 on their spring math MAP, respectively.

I expect them to grow more over the summer than during the school year because they have more time to dig into the math they're passionate about.

According to this, they should still take the 2-5 version in the fall? And then we reevaluate which test to take in winter based on their fall score?

Yes. It also suggests that they should have access to more advanced math instruction (grade six) next year if they continue to score this high. Of course, that instruction could take place outside of school, too.

Thank you aeh. It will work out well to just have him take the 2-5 in the fall and then talk about transitioning to the 6+ when we get those results.

Reading over the info on page 5, it looks like the 6+ would be a better measure because DS is working in a lot of the areas covered by the 6+ and will likely make significant progress in those areas over the summer. I wish that the results would correlate to actual grade levels, not just give %ile ranks. The %iles are especially useless when 99th %ile is so far below the score DS got. The teachers don't seem to quite know what the scores mean either. Certainly no one is willing to look at DS's MAP score and actually base his math instruction off of it. Which makes me wonder why he has to take the test to begin with?

Thanks!

We haven't done much sixth grade stuff yet.

The school uses Singapore. They finished 4A together last school year. They also have finished grade 5 on ALEKS.

We are doing Beast Academy 4A and 4B this summer, and they attend math club/team.

They'll be in the same class next year, with an excellent teacher who is willing to push them. Looking ahead at the Singapore placement tests, I am thinking that they will be able to jump into 5B in the fall. I hope they can do the Singapore workbooks two days a week and work on BA on the other days. I feel like that will keep them learning and challenged without just racing through the core as fast as possible, while still placating the principal that they're getting the district's chosen curriculum.

Then the next year, they should be adequately prepared to start AOPS prealgebra as fifth graders.

Right there with you with DD this year... Hopeful that next year will be better.

In most districts, MAP is used for universal screening and progress monitoring of low and at risk performers. Universal screening obviously means every student must be tested, even those clearly not at risk. Any benefit that accrues to high performers often is incidental. Its use for access to higher level programs is data-driven only at a fairly low cut score of 90th %ile.

Remember that most of the children we discuss on this forum are singularities in their schools. MAP is quite useful for the vast majority of students. From the school's standpoint, there are equity issues any time one starts exempting any category of student from an universal screening measure. Also, pulling out the extremely high performers may skew the norms over the long term, since NWEA uses actual test takers to develop future norms.

To your actual point regarding using available data to inform instruction: yes, it would be optimal if these data affected placement. One should also note, though, that schools do experience gaps between how students test, and how they perform in classes. These gaps may occur for various reasons, but one of them is that group standardized testing doesn't measure all the skills needed to be successful in a course of the indicated grade level. (Many of these are not academic skills, but soft skills.) Schools are often afraid of misplacing a student based solely on test scores, resulting in negative outcomes for both student and school, as nearly every school has experienced this at some point. Reading and language in particular can be challenging, as it is quite difficult to get a good measure of writing skill from a computerized multiple choice exam, yet writing is a huge part of language arts classes.

if you use 230 as the point to transition to 6+ and instruction should be received at that level, ds would have been taking 6th grade math in 2nd grade (and he actually did test int 5th grade math while in 1st grade through mathnasium). We finally had him switch to 6plus MAP in spring of 4th grade when his scores were consistently in the high 250's. He is now entering 6th grade and wrapping up algebra I online this summer. The school provided Alek's after we showed them his achievement test results (WIAT) in January.

MAP is pretty useless to us at this point.